DiscoStu
Active Member
Anyway, sorry for de-railing (heyooo) the Flames arena thread with my street car fantasies.
- Thread starter Meikkhaell
- Start date
Tothewest
Active Member
Could not care less about the streetcar in this pic...but the most underrated element of the EC sitting deeper in the ground, which coincides with the greatest, imo, exterior element of little Caesars in comparison to Rogers Place (amongst others)....that much LESS exterior massing. The arena scales much better within the neighborhood, so much less imposing. We're probably talking 12-15ft less height off the original design.I didn't realize Little Ceasar's had a street car line adjacent to the arena. How neat would it be if we had one of these running down 12th Ave (or similar) east-west in the Beltline.
darwink
Senior Member
I forget, is there a transit fantasy thread? thats always fun once in a blue moon
rkarsk
New Member
Is there an electronic or publicly available version of the streetcar study?
The "D" already exists as a frequent bus. It's one of the only frequent buses in the entire system, the number 3. Most of the time it uses articulated buses, too. Of course it also continues north along Centre St, and south to Elbow/Heritage, to pick up even more passengers.
I like streetcars, but I don't see the need for this route in particular. I ride this route from Beltline to Elbow/50th all the time, and it takes just a couple of minutes.
I think what this corridor really needs is other mobility improvements, like extending the Elbow river path. It ends on the Elbow Drive side of the river at 34 Ave and then picks up again at the Elbow Drive bridge. To bridge that gap on a bike, you either need to cross the river at 32 Ave and ride in the pitch dark through Parkhill (no lights or snow clearing on that part of the path!), or bike on Elbow Drive, which sucks. You see a ton of people biking on the sidewalk along Elbow Drive through there, which is completely understandable.
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Urb
Active Member
Counterpoint - I prefer the scale of Rogers Place. It provides grandness and a better sense of arrival. I think an arena should feel like an arena, not another warehouse block. That said, not having to go up a massive amount of stairs from the main concourse will be a much better user experience for those in the cheap seats.
Tothewest
Active Member
Urb
Active Member
For me this really comes down to the architecture, but good points.
The Familia
Senior Member
Rogers Place is absolutely atrocious at street level. Outside of Oiler games, there is literally no reason to walk by the arena as there is zero street retail. If the Flames can properly activate the EC on 12th Ave and along Stampede Trail as is envisioned, it would automatically blow Roger's Place out of the water.
Joborule
Active Member
I never considered having 17 AV SE transitway be a streetcar. I always envision it would function like a spur line for the green line, and be a low floor LRV. Making it a streetcar instead is something to consider. It would be fairly lengthy for a route though (Chestermere to Westbrook/MRU), and may not be able to handle the peak hours capacity from Chestermere/East Calgary to/from downtown.Just do it you cowards, it's right in the name already!
- Red, Blue, Green transfers? Check
- Special event entertainment district and stampede? Check
- 24/7/365 quality main streets - Check
- 17th Avenue SW - centre of urban life in Calgary, nightlife
- Inglewood - shopping and weekend nightlife
- 17th Avenue SE - major centre for better food and diversity, cheaper housing
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CBBarnett
Senior Member
I am kind of agnostic for the technology - although I agree trains are cooler than buses. In practice, the more important thing is get serious with a direct, fast, crosstown route that hits all the key spots on both 17 Avenues , including the Event Centre.
I don't really care about Chestermere, that can just be some sort of express bus into the core as it is now via MAX Purple. What I suggest is take Route 1 east of downtown as the east 17th Ave route and stitch it together to Route 2 of 17 Avenue SW to create the new route. So much activity and service employment exist all along a connected 17th Avenue SW/SE route it would be a powerhouse of a corridor, with few gaps or low ridership areas but tons of demand in multiple directions. Plus it would bring much needed cross-town access outside of the downtown core but still central enough to hit some serious density and demand.
Make the service good enough it will start informing bigger picture stuff - loads of young creative types would be fine living in East Calgary/Forest Lawn for cheaper rent if they can work/live/party in on 17th Avenue SW in 10 - 15 minutes by transit. Bridges the "Deerfoot divide" in a real and meaningful sense.
This is all more Transit thread materials - but the Event Centre is supposed to be this big catalyst for change, why not be the impetus for a connected 17th Avenue crosstown route?
Tothewest
Active Member
Not sure this topic belongs in here but...To me these things would have to be in a loop. 17ave alone doesn't have enough volume M-F 9-5, it's too retail focused. If you connected 17th with 7th N-S, from 8th to centre E-W...i could get on board with it. Need to link it with Light rail and commuter/commercial traffic
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Hear me out - that retail stretch has loads of jobs, particularly jobs that skew lower-income, or younger demographics - both more likely groups to also be transit users. There's lots of these jobs during the day, but likely "peak" employment for retail is early evenings and weekends. Slightly different but also an important factor - this stretch has likely the largest concentration of night economy jobs at restaurants and bars in the city - if there ever was a night bus in Calgary.... this is the spot.
All together that's likely several hundred or a thousand of jobs between 8th Street and Stampede, with a particularly large cluster around Tompkins Park. This number may be higher when you add in the non-retail jobs around this area (e.g. lawyers, tax offices, random mixed office, dentists etc.).
What really gets that all day, everyday traffic is when you layer on the other big things in the immediate area. These already do boost transit numbers in the area and have for nearly a century.
Western Canada High School (1)
- 2,200 students / 100+ teachers and staff. M-F, 9 - 5 ish, 10 months a year.
- Local but citywide draw for special programs.
- Highly transit-dependent demographic (teens).
St. Mary's High School (2)
- 1,100 students / 50+ teachers and staff. M-F, 9 - 5 ish, 10 months a year.
- Local but citywide draw for special programs.
- Highly transit-dependent demographic (teens).
Stampede Park (3)
- The most fickle and seasonal of the bunch, but between zero and 100,000 daily users (0 to 1,000s of staff).
- Citywide draw for both seasonal employment and visitors.
Add in all the transfers to other transit, add in the local population density - among the highest in the city - and it's building the case. Real "big city" transit demand where nothing in particularly is the main driver, just sufficient, all day, all night, every day, all year demand for people to travel through here - with demographics that skew younger, more service-employment and lower incomes.
These factors and population characteristics are probably why 17th Avenue is so often misunderstood (by the city's transportation department with recent sidewalk "improvements" and the avenue's own BIA pro-parking attitudes, for example) - it really is a citywide hub primed for huge and stable transit demand, but it's so blended and mixed-use nothing floats to the top to drive the planning decisions like the commercial core of downtown or a major hospital.
If not a fancy tram, then at least a re-think of the bus network to really leverage one of the best and most transit supportive combos of density, institutions and population we have.
Tothewest
Active Member
For the record, the only reason this topic started was Little Caesars had a pic of a streetcar in front of it....a streetcar system NOBODY uses in Detroit lol, Simpsons Monorail anybody?!?! The fact we have a sophisticated/expensive light rail network that truly holds its own against many many major cities in North America....that's where our big dollars can go. Let buses handle inner city.
Back to arena talk!!
Tothewest
Active Member
literally horrible...but i'll extend that opinion to the whole ice district. Wildly uninteresting, concrete jungle, zero at-grade retail presence...save for a Boston Pizza and Canadian Brewhouse
